Day 24: Second day at Yellowstone

Miles driven to-date: 6,688
States visited to-date: 21

We arose early today to take down our tent and get packed up before our last morning at Yellowstone. We decided to once again forgo the showers at the campground so you’ll notice I didn’t include any pictures of us today; our matted hair just wasn’t photo-worthy. J By the way, it is strange to think that if we had been able to get tickets to the World Cup, we would have been in Germany today watching the France – Portugal game!

Having heard so much about the many bears in Yellowstone, we were determined to view some wildlife. We drove north from our campsite to get to Hayden Valley, where various creatures often roam about. We drove by Yellowstone Lake on the way there:

Arriving in the valley, we almost immediately saw another moose and quite a few bison. By the way, you probably knew this but I didn’t realize that the common name for the North American bison is the buffalo (they are the same thing). We then came to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and saw some amazing views, especially from the Lower Falls. There, the water cascades over 300 feet down – it’s nearly twice as high as Niagara Falls.

We drove around a bit and saw the falls from a few different angles. We then drove through Hayden Valley again and soon met an “animal jam” – cars stopped in the road because of animals crossing:

Yellowstone was wonderful though of course it was tough to see more than a couple of highlights during our short stay. I would definitely like to return some day.

With a seven hour drive ahead of us, we left the park around noon. We passed the small town of Cody, Wyoming on the way to our hotel in Gillette (WY) so we stopped there for a late lunch and learned that Cody is the rodeo capital of the world.

The next part of the drive was pretty interesting because we needed to traverse the Bighorn mountains and the roads were really winding. While on one of these crazy roads, we climbed to almost 10,000 feet of elevation and then got stuck behind a huge truck hauling timber. We finally passed the truck, only to be stopped by another friend on the road:

Steve had read about a “Roadfood” favorite in the small town of Story, Wyoming so we stopped there to pick up sandwiches for dinner. It was a great little find – the restaurant was called “The Waldorf A’Story” – and we were also able to get some Alaskan Amber beer in honor of Steve’s parents’ trip to Alaska this week. We got into Gillette in the evening, took MUCH needed showers, and got ready for Mount Rushmore in the morning. Hope you are all doing well!